New features in WorldCat Discovery Services make searching more intuitive for users and enable library staff to provide access to their customized site from websites popular with their users.

New features added in April

New features include:

Type-ahead search suggestions This feature helps searchers save time, by providing suggestions for often-searched phrases through WorldCat Discovery. It also helps them identify possible additional phrases or phrase combinations to extend their search.

Permalinks Permalinks give users a quick, consistent way to reference specific items in WorldCat Discovery. This permanent URL, based on the item’s OCLC number, can be especially helpful when bookmarking an item, posting to Twitter or Facebook.

Features coming soon: staff-specific features and additional ILL integration

Features coming soon include staff-specific functionality, such as the ability to see a MARC record view of items in search results. New staff features will also include the display of libraries who hold an item by OCLC symbol. (The current end-user view displays holding libraries by proximity to the searcher’s IP range location.)

Enhancements to further integrate WorldCat Discovery and WorldShare Interlibrary Loan are also planned for the coming months, so that resource sharing librarians can use the staff view of WorldCat Discovery to connect directly to WorldShare ILL and/or ILLiad.

Start your transition to WorldCat Discovery

The WorldCat Discovery interface is available to all current FirstSearch, WorldCat Local and WorldShare Management Services subscribers as part of existing subscriptions. Libraries are encouraged to start their transition to WorldCat Discovery today.

About WorldCat Discovery

WorldCat Discovery Services is an integrated suite of cloud-based applications that enables people to discover more than 1.5 billion electronic, digital and physical resources in libraries around the world and makes library collections visible to information seekers in the places where they start their search.